Contraction supports sharing

When you’re trying to get grounded during a busy day, give attention toward your body's natural rhythms. One rhythm that I pay attention to is contraction and release. When you contract you bring your awareness inside and build up energy to share with the world through release.

One way I contract is by taking a nap. Yesterday I was recovering from a week of facilitating followed hosting family. My awareness was tuned into the care of others, and I wanted to shift it toward myself.

So I ate a snack, set my timer for 20 minutes, curled into bed, and took a nap. The nap helped me contract my awareness before I shared any more with the world.

You can take a nap anywhere. I’ve learned it’s ok to nap in union halls, on office floors, and   in my car. And even if you can’t fall asleep, you can close your eyes, turn calming music on, and give your body a rest. I prefer 20 minute naps, to get refreshed and ready to continue with the day. 

Contraction is a resource. When you feel you’re body curling in, something wants to get protected. Listen to that wisdom, tend to your inner-self, and take a nap. It’ll help you come out and share your gifts with the world.

Put resistance in the body

One way you can get past fears of authentic expression is to move the resistance from your mind to your body. Physical resistance and mental resistance are just resistance from a body perspective. So when someone is facing mental resistance, you can provide physical resistance to help clear the path in their mind. 

I first learned how to do this from Celia Kutz. We were in a workshop, learning about conflict and I was resisting expressing my anger. Celia saw my frustration and offered herself as a resource. 

“Matthew, come push both of your hands into mind hands, and I’ll push back to give you some resistance.”

When I started pushing, Celia felt me holding back and invited me to push harder. Soon I pushed hard enough to move forward and tears started falling from my eyes. 

Behind my anger were waves of sadness. Pressure against my hands, gave me something I trust is there. Because I felt the my hands moving past the pressure, I could also feel my emotions rush forward past my resistance. 

For many facilitators working in the body channel is unfamiliar territory. Living in societies where the mind is highly valued, you may avoid the body channel. And the body is one of your greatest resource. But to move past internal resistance to your full expression, you need motion, and physical motion can help.  

Welcoming abundance

When you’re hopping from project to project, remember that rest time is essential to integration. You don’t need to push ourselves to the edge all the time. Being on your edge supports growth, and we all need time to rest and connect the pieces. 

When facilitating, I build rest time into my agenda through breaks and trying to end sessions a few minutes early, but recently I've been experimenting with having people allot 8 hours, and then we finish in 6 hours. 

What does it for a group? When you end sessions early you remind people that there is an abundance of time. 

Organizers and activists are often rushing to meet external timelines, which keeps them in reaction mode and limits the options they can see. So many effective campaigns for change aim to stay in proactive action, aka the realm of possibility.

You can teach this key campaigning lesson through stories of past campaigns, or give people an experience of unexpected possibility through an experience of abundance. 

A favorite way I create a sense abundance is by facilitating games that are connected with the topic at hand. This is different than icebreakers or energizer that just shift the energy. When the games are directly connect with the topic, fun gets attached to what we perceive as the work and people are more willing to be revel in the fun with an abundant attitude.

Let’s practice abundance during our meetings and workshops, so we can welcome it as part of the change we’re pursuing. 

Grounded Play

When you're ungrounded, it’s harder to make strategic decisions. It’s harder to be clear about your next steps. It’s harder to move into action. So it’s important for change makers to get back to the ground.

Play is one of the earliest ways people learn to get grounded. Remember running around until you’re out of breath? Or laughing until your sides hurt? That’s the feeling of returning to your body.

So during serious meetings, I add in an element of play. It may be a game of tag, but often it’s more subtle. I will encourage jokes or build in a competition for people to come up with new ideas. 

Play works on a principle of tension and release. In tag the tension comes from trying to catch someone or not get caught, and the release comes when someone gets tagged and the roles change. 

Tension and release is the same rhythm that helps people access new ideas. The tension is trying to generate a new idea, and the release comes when you express it. If you want to feel the freedom of doing something new, then you need to get through the tension. 

Like most rhythms, the rhythm of tension and release is easier to access once you get it started. So if you want to access new ideas in your groups or daily life, build in some play. Not just games on your phone, but grounded play that leaves your body feeling different at the end. This will increase your access to creative thinking. 

Bringing art into facilitation

Bringing your artistic practice into your facilitation can make challenging discussions more engaging. Art inspires people to act, so let’s use it! You can integrate song, drawing, and dance into your agendas.

I was taught to have songs as additions to agendas, instead of letting the music be another wisdom the group welcomes. I didn’t realize that music could be a part of my everyday life and then flow into my teaching.

Do you ever work with music on in the background? That’s integrating music into your everyday life. People over the world share songs daily. And yet in facilitation we often stop the music and default to talking.

Recently, I was feeling free and singing as I walked down the street. As I saw an older person ahead, I quieted my voice until my ears perked up. The older person was singing too!

Song and other art forms don’t have to be banished to the borderlands of our facilitation. Your artistic practice is an integral way of making change.

In my communities, colonialism, racism, and middle-class training led to song, art, and dance being cut out of daily life. As we facilitate people who are changing these systems, let's also bring these different ways of knowing back. 

How might you let your art form inform your next facilitation project? Do you want to have a group draw? I’ve pulled out crayons with executives, and after initial resistance they were talking, humming, and drawing like a group of children. Taking the risk to bring in your art may be the hardest part.

Gratitude is a muscle

You can practice gratitude as a way to find internal stability.

The human brain has a negativity bias, that serves us well in times where we are struggling for our basic needs. But when we have food, clothing, and shelter, gratitude can help our brains appreciate the beauty in our world.

The planet is in a moment of transition as our climate changes and global political power fluctuates. Even as we grieve that which we lose, gratitude is a needed compliment if we believe justice is possible.

Gratitude shifts our brains from stressing about what might be, to appreciating what is. As a trainer, gratitude helps me to not just perseverate on what I did wrong, it helps me look at a group and be specific about what’s working. This is useful since people can replicate what is working better then they can fix what’s not working.

Gratitude is a practice that requires cultivation.

I used to have a giant notepad paper in my office that said “I AM GRATEFUL” where I would write down one thing a day. Each morning, it served as a visual reminder of gratitude.

Now I keep a gratitude journal at home, and a couple nights a week, I write down moments from the day for which I am grateful. 

When you have a gratitude practice, you see the world differently. So when chaos is emerging, remember gratitude.

How will you cultivate a gratitude practice this week?

Using Cut Paper

Make your agenda planning more engaging by bringing art into the process. It can lead to surprising results.

I was preparing to facilitate a strategy retreat and my energy was soaring. I spent the day outside with my partner, and going back to my laptop did not excite me. I knew that I needed to share something with the organization's leadership before the morning, so I took a risk.

I pulled out the construction paper and started cutting. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, so I stopped thinking and let my hand take the lead. Suddenly more activity ideas started flowing through me, and I wrote activity ideas on each piece of paper. 

Sometimes you need to kill the teacher-voice in your head and stop doing things the “right” way. Instead take a risk, and try another way. You can access different parts of your wisdom using different mediums. You may feel bound to your laptop, but take a moment and free yourself. Why not?! 

If you are stuck on how to design your next workshop, get some construction paper and scissors, then start cutting. Create a couple shapes and write different activities on each shape. Let the art take the lead.

First play with the placement of the shapes and create a design that you like visually. Then look at it and review the activities written on the paper to find the logical flow. From there edit as needed.

When I tried this activity, I created a strategy retreat agenda that worked down to the minute. We actually got out an hour earlier than planned after making a decision and planning next steps. See what wisdom an artistic medium can offer you facilitation designs.

Grounding on the Go

When you’re on the go, you are physically ungrounded. Staying in place can make a huge difference to get you grounded.

Ever walk up to a farmer and feel a sense of grounding. That comes from them working with the land, in one place! So when you're on-the-go or traveling for work, it’s important to find some consistency.  

You can tend to your spiritually life in a busy day by integrating spiritual tools into your on-the-go schedule. I think planning for your busy days provides a baseline that will support you during your slower times.

When I travel I identify a few spots that I will use to anchor my sense of grounding. I create an altar inside my temporary home, where I sit and pray daily. I go to the same tree near my temporary place, and do a grounding meditation. And I walk the same path daily to remind myself of my relationship to this place. 

These simple anchors help my body relax and integrate lessons from my time. And if I only have 5-10 minutes, I can get to them all.

You’re body can relax when you integrate simple spiritual tools into your life on the go. Start out today by finding a connection to the land near you.

Finding Balance through Intention

Finding work-life balance when you are valued for your experience and your identity can be a challenge. At large and small institutions, I've found how to succeed as a Black, queer person, while tending to my soul. The key is attention and intention.

When I worked at Princeton University, I was at the top of my game professionally. The benefits, pay, and work were so good. But the racism, sexism, and power abuse at the institution was disgusting. I had to find a way to be in my integrity and keep my job. So I started by remembering that most people in organizations are following rules and playing a game.

Most games have explicit rules, but most organizations have implicit rules. Organizations reflect behavioral patterns in wider society, so just leaving your job when you don’t like the rules isn’t always the solution. To navigate your workplace and find balance, the first step is to bring your attention toward the rules of the game. 

At Princeton there were unwritten rules about the dress code, who gets to speak to whom, and the order in which people should speak during meetings.

You can figure out the implicit rules in your organization. Watch how people behave in meetings, and notice the patterns your see. Let go of your judgments about the rules and people’s behavior, instead notice what rules people are following.

Once you have a sense of the rules you can follow or break them with intention.

At Princeton, I chose to follow the dress code when I was building relationships that broke hierarchical expectations. When I wanted to build relationship with an ally during a meeting, I broke the rules and spoke up out of turn because it would grab people’s attention. I never break all the rules at once, but I did use my awareness of the rules to do work that was in my integrity. 

When you are aware of the rules at an institution, then you have the freedom to choose how to align your intentions with your actions and create the impact you desire. 

This is freedom work under the radar. You get clear about how you want to challenge things, you put aside the obstacles, and you do it.

Remember: You are free. Access your wisdom, act with intention, and impact our world. That way the job can’t suck your soul away.

Wisdom in Contradiction

Holding contradictions is an old spiritual wisdom to help you navigate life’s complicated realities. 

Right now, people power is on the rise globally as authoritarian governments are also on the rise. One reality is not more right, but they are hard to make sense of at the same time. They key to contradictions is not to solve them, but instead welcome both sides and listen for the wisdom.

For years, I pitted two parts of myself against each other, I separated my spiritual self and my activist self into the two worlds. I found that spiritual folks resisted my activist intensity, and activist community resisted my desire to use spiritual tools. So I learned to live with both truths in contradiction.

Then an indigenous elder challenged me to listen to spirits while facilitating an activist training. I took his challenge, and found myself using the spiritual tools of chakra healing, energy work, and smudging to help groups recover from conflict. 

Now in many societies spiritual wisdom and social justice are connected, but with the colonial history of Christianity, many people are cautious about spirituality. But when I brought spirituality and activism together, a larger wisdom was illuminated: colonial systems are falling down globally.

Now I can see how colonialism globally is getting challenged successfully, and new/old ways of being are taking hold in Africa, the Americas, and many places around the world.

Welcome life contradictions. With the rise of people power and authoritarian governments, I invite you to hold both. Hold them and yourself with care, and the wisdom will come. 

Accompaniment Equals Impact

Moving from one social justice initiative to another in the same day can feel exhilarating and exhausting, especially if you bring spiritual eldership to your groups. An alternate way to support organizing is accompaniment.

Accompaniment is what guided my steps when I was supporting activists in Ferguson, MO after Michael Brown, a black teenager, was killed by the police in 2014. I was tasked with training new organizers, but much of what I did was accompaniment work. 

I listened to people’s stories, I showed up every day, and helped them clarify next steps that were life-giving, strategic, and sustainable. This meant sticking with the same people during direct actions, city council hearings, mass meetings, and meals on the go. And saying no to other opportunities to support change in the region.

My work didn’t create a bevy of new organizers, as was my initial goal, but it did slow people down. In the slowness, people stopped reacting to all the stimuli around them, and instead they were able to process their trauma, heal and recover, and then start looking ahead toward proactive strategies.

Accompaniment is the process of staying present with people over time, to help them through the highs and lows.

We live in an age where our people's attentions is pulled in many directions. And yet, stillness remains a powerful tool.

Our movements need anchors as chaos increases globally. And you can provide an anchor for your community. 

Instead of staying actively involved in 5 groups. Try choosing 1 or 2 where you will focus your energy this year. Your people will appreciate it, and you will create space for leaders to enter.

Unitarian Universalist minister Elizabeth Nguyen has called for more people to provide spiritual eldership alongside social justice movements. She calls them movement chaplains. 

I echo her call, and I believe the effectiveness of movement chaplains is only enhanced by limiting the number of projects you take on. Focus gives you time to make intentional interventions that will have a lasting impact. 

It’s the difference between being a surgeon and a primary care doctor. A surgeon makes a quick cuts to initiate a healing process. Primary care doctors assist someone’s growth, healing, and heath over time.

If you give all your energy away, you choose the role of the martyr instead of the comrade. We need you in this fight. We need you to last. So take a page from the book on accompaniment.

Slow and steady will get you the change we need.

Song: A tool for challenging moments

One undervalued tool for facilitating difficult conversations is to integrate song.

Remember a time when listened to a song on loop because it helped you feel your emotions and process your feelings? You can use a similar process to bringing songs into your groups.

When I was with a group of Asian-American advocates who were about to talk about power dynamics in their organization, I started by teaching them a song.

“We rise…humbly hearted. Rise…won’t be divided. Rise…with spirits to guide us. Rise. In hope, in prayers, we find ourselves here. In hope, in prayers. We’re right here. In hope, in prayers, we find ourselves here. In hope. In prayers. We’re right here.”

They sang timidly at first, but after we dove into the conversation we would take pauses to sing the song. Each time their singing voices would get louder and they would return to the conversation with a light in their eyes. People were able to share insecurities and speak honestly to the organization's directors.

Song helps people integrate their emotions with their actions.

In this advocacy group, song helped people access their crying, laughter, and honest sharing. And the I taught song turned into an anthem for the staff, who now teach it to new members and sing it during challenging meetings.

You can sing together, sing to the group, or play a recorded song because there’s something in the sound’s vibration that helps us get through hard times. You can increase the depth of a conversation, and the safety in a group, by welcoming in a different mode of communication. This can mean switching languages, or bringing in music.

I suggest you try a song to start. Singing or listening to a song together can help people resonate together - as people all feel the same sound waves.

Forgiveness as Release

When someone gets under your skin and you want to move on, try forgiveness. Forgiveness is a spiritual form of letting go. Forgiveness is not for the person who hurt you, it’s about you.

I had a white, anti-racist ally, betray me during a workshop. She acted out anti-Black sentiment and then defended herself. And for weeks I kept asking, how could she do that? As my mind wanted to escape this betrayal, I kept reviewing my feelings about it, and the pain wasn’t leaving.  

Then I remembered the power of forgiveness.

When you are hurt by someone, an energetic connection is created - a link between you and them. As you stay connected, your body keeps trying to process the pain, but without intention and attention your body will struggle to release the pain.

Forgiveness can release you from the energetic link caused by pain. 

It’s a message to your spirit that you don’t need to hold onto this pain anymore. We hold onto pain as a way to protect us next time. And yet the pain doesn’t protect us, instead it keeps our system alert, which creates a sense of exhaustion.

When we acknowledge that we are now safe, then we’re able to release past pains. So I pause and say this outloud. 

“I am safe. I am well. I forgive you, [insert name].” 

Now it’s not a magic switch, but it does initiate a process. Each day, I feel less heaviness, and more freedom. The person may never know what you did because it’s not your responsibility to fix them. Let the pain go, and in its place invite love.

Bring all your tools to facilitation

When facilitating difficult conversations, you need to remember your spiritual tools.

Spiritual tools don’t always have a clear place in your agenda. But it’s important for us to carry them as facilitators.

I was facilitating a group of Black, Indigenous, People of Color when a storm broke out in the group. People were sharing pain, trauma, and anger. We knew we needed to do something different to help this group. So an indigenous mother who lived next door ran home to gather her sage. When she returned, she smudged out the space, people cried to release their pain, and my co-facilitator and I supported participants through energy work.

It was spiritual.

Now no one signed up for a spiritual workshop. But they did sign up for a workshop to help them be better change makers.

As you do liberation centered change work, you are invited to honor indigenous wisdoms.

Spirits and energy are recognized by people across the world. You can facilitate while staying letting the wisdom of spirit flow through you. But this requires you to do root chakra work.

Root charka work helps you stand in your dignity and remember your right to be.

Your root chakra connects you to the earth, because you, as you are, have a right to exist on this earth.

Shifting Pace

You can find work-life balance while doing the work you are passionate about.

To shift pace, start with a breath.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

My body is used to a fast pace. Going from meeting to airport to training. That cycle is so ingrained in my body that my feet often start out running before walking.

My pace is ancestral. My ancestors were on the move to survive. And I learned to keep moving as an artist, organizer, and entrepreneur.

But in my hustle, I running to not be caught as an imposter, to have other people say I’m doing good work, to make sure I fit someone else’s idea of who I should be. I’m running because that’s how I learned to live.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

A friend who knew my fast paced life asked me, what am I running from or to. That’s when I realized that I’m making a choice to continuing running. My ancestors didn’t have the same choice. But as a middle-class Black person in the US I have a choice.

I do my most resonate work when I slow down. And I believe you can too.

Notice your feet in contact with the floor.

When you start actively slowing down, you may feel more emotions. I felt exhaustion, overwhelming sadness, and eventually depression. I was scared that these feelings would swallow me.

But slowing down allows you to move through those big emotions. Feeling the lows, helps you be present in the highs. Your laugh may change. When I slow down, I let a snort roll out.

Breathe In. Breathe Out

Slowing down, you can act from a place of alignment, where your words and actions meet. So in 2020 slow down and tend to your healing processes so you can serve others. That’s one way you can continue transforming our world.

Smile.
Let the ends of your mouth be gently pulled up.
Breathe.